‘You Better Be There!’ MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Warns Rural ‘Cult’ Will Vote For ‘Their Craziness’ If Not Stopped

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said Wednesday that anyone who wants to have civil rights in the future must to get out the vote to counter “rural people” whom he described as mentally unsound cultists.

On Wednesday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough first attacked rural voters when prompting Claire McCaskill on the subject of the Iowa caucuses, saying anyone who doesn’t want to vote for Donald Trump will be intimidated into not casting a ballot.

McCaskill agreed, saying that in rural areas, “if you are not on Donald Trump’s bandwagon, if you’re not a member of the cult, then you just stay quiet.”

But with a caucus, “you can’t do that,” said McCaskill. “Everybody sees which which, which corner of the room you go to, uh, who you are joining.”

As the conversation continued, co-host Mika Brzezinksi asked Matthews about Iowa and New Hampshire, and he repeated the “cult” framing from McCaskill as well as Scarborough’s singling out rural voters, painting them as anti-Constitution, anti-civil rights bad guys with mental problems.

Paired with his praise of President Joe Biden’s speech it was clear what course the MSNBC hosts and contributors were campaigning for voters to take.

BRZEZINSKI: Iowa is days away. New Hampshire is coming up. And Donald Trump, given this conversation, even, is the clear frontrunner.

MATTHEWS: You know, I think President Biden gave a good speech on Friday. I think he began the conversation about the Constitution and democracy. But I think he has to turn the corner and go to the next step. The reason we love our democracy. The reason we all love it is, if we don’t like the government and they’re doing something, we can do something about it. The 18th amendment was founded, was followed by the 21st amendment. You can drink beer if you want to. It was corrected.

If women want the right to the bodily, their own protection of their own body. They want to have — so they go and vote in Ohio and they just say, we’re going to win this one. And you can do this. But the voter does have a role to play. The court system will put the bad guys in jail, the ones who were lied to by the president, former president, in jail. They’re doing all that, right? They’re going to plead guilty, they’re going to go away. But in the end, the voters have to vote for their rights. You got to vote for civil rights.

You know, when I was growing up in Philadelphia, there were the Black, a majority of Black, majority now, they voted, they were highly registered voter. They were more registered than the White people. You know why? Because they had Frank Rizzo as mayor. You had a law and order guy, and they said, this is the only way we can defend ourselves. You had, you had black lives, this is an early case of that. You have to defend yourself. You have to vote to protect your rights in the Constitution.

The Bill of Rights was put there by Jefferson and Madison because people said the Constitution and democracy is not enough. We have to write in here our Bill of rights.

And I have to, and voters have to get out there and say, damn it, if I’m a young person, if I’m a Black person, if I’m out in the streets and I don’t trust the cops, I got to vote that way. And if I have a woman, I want to protect myself in my own decisions. I’ve got to vote that way.

I think voters have got to take their hand in this election and don’t wait for the government to do it. Because, you know this election is going to be close. And it’s going to be very close in places like Pennsylvania, and you’re gonna have rural people out there voting their craziness about the cult.

So you better be there to match them and you got to be there. Vote against that. And I’m telling you, this is really important that you vote for your rights.

BRZEZINSKI: I know it is. And for women especially, we’ve already lost many rights.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.

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